"She Said/ She Saw" by Nora McClintock

From Goodreads: "Tegan was in the backseat when her two best friends were gunned down in front of her. Was it an argument over drugs? An ongoing feud? Or something more random? Tegan says she didn't see who did it. Or know why. Nobody will believe her. Not the police; not her friends; not the families of the victims; and not even Kelly, her own sister. Is she afraid that the killer will come back? Or does she know more than she is saying?

Shunned at school and feeling alone, Tegan must sort through her memories and try to decide what is real and what is imagined. And in the end she must decide whether she has the strength to stand up and do the right thing." 

This is a frustrating book to say the least, but only because I am an impatient sort of person and when I want answers I want them now, which this book (Tegan specifically) wasn't giving me. But for that alone it is clear that Norah McClintock is a genius... I seriously could not put this book down. Whatsoever. Stirring pasta and reading at the same time? Yes. Trying to scare the cat off the kitchen cupboard while reading at the same time? Yes. Though I have said numerous times, "I was unable to put this book down!", it is true in the sense that once I start it I cannot really accomplish anything aside from eating, sleeping, and all of those daily necessities, but while reading this book I seriously didn't even want to bother with anything else! I think that the small size of it (211 pages) also contributed to the fact that I was unable to put it down, I kept thinking to myself, "This is so tiny that it should take an hour or so at most and therefore all else can wait... I CAN'T STOP BECAUSE IF I STOP I WON'T GET ANY ANSWERS!".

While it would seem that Tegan was the victim in this situation and as such she deserved sympathy, I couldn't really dredge any up for her- all of my sympathy was allocated towards Kelly. Though Tegan did eventually do the right thing in the end (in perhaps the wrong way), she only somewhat redeemed her in my eyes. I don't think that she was fully able to redeem herself because of her past transgressions (ie. keeping things to herself, not being completely honest, and whatnot).
 
It did take me a while to adjust to the sudden shifts in narrators/ Kelly's habit of narrating her bit in the form of a script (she is a budding cinematographer), but I soon came to really like the style and found it to be very refreshing. I think that fans of Caroline B. Cooney will love Norah's work. 

Rating: 7.5/10

I received this ARC from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program/ from the publisher and I was not compensated for my review. This book will be released March 1, 2011.  

PS. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway of Sean Beaudoin’s “Going Nowhere Faster”!